We have entered a great age of disruption, where complexity drives exponential change and systemic risk. This calls for a new risk management paradigm, from "predict & control" to "sense & respond." The application of network science allows us to filter signal from noise, and focus on critical pressure points. Financial Cartography raises environmental awareness to help us navigate challenging terrain. Ultimately, such maps can serve as mass collaboration platforms to spark social risk intelligence.
6. 6
Seek to understand hidden fault lines…
While Qantas & CX rerouted, many continued business as usual:
“We've flown this route for many years, it's safe and that's the reason
why we are taking this route”
Source: BBC
7. 7
Market linkages
Asset price data
Clustering
Balance sheet data
Financial Cartography reveals connected
risks and hidden patterns
Bilateral exposure data
Central nodes
8. 8
How to manage emerging systemic risk?
As in healthcare, our best chance lies is early detection
Source: MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS: ORIGIN OF ABNORMAL CELLS
FOUND, UC DAVIS (2011)
9. 9
Adaptive Risk Management:
Powered by Polarities
I. Macro: identify potential scenarios
See: Adaptive Stress Testing: Amplifying Network Intelligence by Integrating Outlier Information
(Laubsch 2014)
II. Micro: monitor visible risk
Amplifying tremors
Structural Risk
10. 10
Diffusion of Disruptive Innovation
Source: Wikipedia; see Geoffrey Moore’s “Crossing the Chasm” (1999)
11. 11
U.S. Subprime Bond Early Warning Case Study
-105.0%
-52.5%
0.0%
52.5%
105.0%
157.5%
7/19/06 9/5/06 10/23/06 12/8/06 1/29/07 3/16/07 5/2/07 6/19/07 8/6/07 9/21/07 11/8/07 12/28/07 2/15/08 4/4/08 5/21/08
SpreadChange
Date
300%+ increase in vol
from Dec 12 to 21 '06
99% VaR bands vs 2006-1 AAA spread changes
HSBC subprime disclosure triggers a 12 sd move on Feb 23
'07, the day after the $10.5bn HSBC loss announcement
Ratings agencies initiate reviews and/or
downgrades week of July 9 '07
Source: Alan Laubsch “Subprime Risk Management Lessons”, RiskMetrics
2. GS exits
subprime
(Micro)
1. Robert Shiller warns of housing Bubble in 2005 (Macro)
12. 12
Three Stages of Risk
0.
125.
250.
375.
500.
1/19/06 4/27/06 8/4/06 11/13/06 2/23/07 6/1/07 9/10/07 12/19/07 4/1/08
Dec ’06: first tremor
(vol up 300% Dec 12-
21)
Feb 23 ’07: HSBC
subprime loss disclosed
AAA Subprime Bond Spreads (2006-
1) AAA) First ratings agency
downgrades week of
July 9 '07
bp's
1. Hidden Risk
Innovators
2. Emerging
Early
Adopters
3. Crisis
Early Majority
13. 13
Tipping Point Dynamics require early
detection and action
⦁ Look for exponential rates of change
Source: “Building A Reputation Risk Management Capability”, Diermeier & Loeb, 2011
Invisible/Potential Visible & amplifying
15. 15
Dragon King
(Sornette 2009)
Black Swan
(Taleb 2001, 2007)
Two kinds of crises
What are you afraid of?
The future is already here. It’s just not very evenly
distributed.
- William Gibson
21. 21
Disruptive Energy “Dragon Kings”
The future is already here. It’s just not very evenly
distributed. - William Gibson
Alternatives
Divestment
Carbon Price
34. 34
Mass collaboration platforms empower
social intelligence
“…if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange them, then we both have
two ideas. It's nonzero.“ -- Dean Kamen (“Abundance” by Diamandis & Kotler)
35. 35
Manage polarities for virtuous cycles
Outcomes reflect compounding feedback loops which create virtuous
cycles or death spirals (“Rethinking capitalism,” Hanauer & Liu, 2012)
36. 36
Conclusions: Key Polarities
• Fault lines & tremors
• Think big & move fast
• Core & Periphery
All interesting things happen at the edges of the system.
They do not happen at the solid core. In the edges where
things are uncertain is where the evolution happens.
- Vinod Khosla
We live in an increasingly complex and fast moving world. Predict and control no longer works. A more sensible approach is Sense and Respond. A mountain biking race would be a good analogy. Of course we do all the homework and map out the course, get GPS and weather forecasts. But what makes the real difference is executing on the course, sensing and responding to the changing conditions of the course. This is a paradigm we will take to stress testing.
At FNA we’re map makers. Maps amplify intelligence. They allow us to see hidden patterns in complex data. How are risks connected, and how do they evolve in a complex non-linear network?
This is an image of a brain scan showing abnormal cells in that are early warning signals for MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS in a recent study from UC DAVIS. There are so many parallels between systemic risk management and healthcare. Because our ability to control goes down exponentially after tipping points are crossed, our best chance lies is early detection and action. And the good news is in both finance and healthcare we’ve started to build useful diagnostic tools that allow us to better detect unhealthy patterns early.
Posted by Phyllis Brown-UC Davis on August 30, 2011
Identify where we are in the business growth cycle (from macro to sector & firm level)
Diffusion of ideas and innovation in societies follow exponential growth patterns also seen in epidemiology
Monitor factors that change contagion rates and “tip” epidemics
Malcolm Gladwell’s “Tipping Point”: Connectors, Mavens, Salespeople
How is today’s financial fashion evolving?
Monitor factors that change contagion rates and “tip” epidemics
How is today’s financial fashion evolving?
This is an interesting graph from a reputation risk consultancy. It shows the rapid phase transition of reputation risk, and how the only time to potentially exert control is before the exponential viral spread. However, most firms typically only respond at the inflection point, after a tipping point has been crossed and there is little chance to exert control.
- Coal, Tar Sands, Shale, Deep Sea Exploration
- Materials. Utilities?
- Russia, Brazil, Mexico, Australia, Canada
- Junk bonds
- EM bonds
- Financials with Energy Exposure
There are three major disruptive Dragon Kings, as Didier Sornette calls them. These are characterized by small changes that amplify super-exponentially to become major forces that drive the world.
Last year markets a tipping point in divestment with leading endowments, and ever more are signing up. Of course Hedge funds have seen this and many hopped aboard too.
The growth in alternatives is important, especially solar. Oil is competing with technology that is getting exponentially better and cheaper. Solar is either at or will be at grid parity within the next couple of years, with costs continuing to decline. Improving Battery technology and EV has the potential to radically transform the landscape.
And finally, there’s the pricing and limit of carbon, which has the potential to strand over 75% of the industry’s energy assets. Energy producers recognize this, and will therefore keep pumping as much as they can until those costs are actually imposed.